SWP, unionists show support after attack on synagogue

PHILADELPHIA — For the second time in five weeks, the stained glass windows of Temple Menorah Keneseth Chai were shattered here Jan. 6.

“Rocks were thrown through the windows just before Friday night services were about to begin, scattering glass in the second-floor sanctuary,” Malcolm Adler (inset), president of the synagogue’s executive board, told the Militant. “No one was injured, but congregation members were very upset.” The synagogue, established in 1925, is the oldest in this Jewish community in northeast Philadelphia. The same windows were shattered with rocks Dec. 2.

Socialist Workers Party members visited the synagogue Jan. 9 to show solidarity. Mark Allendorf also came to offer support from Glaziers Union Local 252. “I live in the neighborhood,” Allendorf said. “My union called me and said to get down here and help out. We’ll provide volunteers from our local to put in the new windows.”

Adler thanked the visitors for their solidarity. He said he had contacted churches in the area and the media to get the word out on the attack.

This was just one of a number of recent anti-Semitic attacks. Jewish community centers were evacuated after receiving bomb threats Jan. 9 in Tenafly, New Jersey; Rockville, Maryland; Jacksonville, Florida; Columbia, South Carolina; and Nashville, Tennessee, Reuters reported.

A few days earlier, the Jan. 5 New York Times reported other incidents of Jew-hatred, including attacks on menorahs — Hanukkah candelabras — in Brooklyn, New York, and Chandler and Sun City, Arizona. Nazi-like swastikas were painted on homes in Esperance and dug into a ball field in Levittown, both in New York, and painted on playground rides in Longmont, Colorado.

The FBI reported in November that attacks based on people’s religious affiliation rose in 2015, with attacks on Muslims rising some 67 percent. Acts of Jew-hatred made up 51 percent of the documented attacks, with attacks on Muslims comprising 22 percent and attacks on Catholics 4.5 percent.

In some cases Jews and Muslims are joining forces to protest these attacks. Jonathan Greenblatt, chief executive of the Anti-Defamation League, told the group’s conference to applause last November that if Muslims were forced to register in the U.S., “that is the day that this proud Jew will register as a Muslim.”

— CHRIS HOEPPNER